England Under-21s came from behind to secure a comfortable victory against Israel in a friendly at Oakwell, Barnsley. Stuart Pearce's side found themselves a goal down in the 25th minute when the visitors broke forward and Mohammad Klibat looped a shot past Ben Amos. Martyn Waghorn equalised with a header 13 minutes after the break and a Marvin Sordell thunderbolt put England in front moments later.

A penalty by Nathan Delfouneso, with eight minutes of normal time remaining, and a finish from his fellow substitute Henri Lansbury in injury time put the gloss on the win although Pearce was making no excuses for the way things had started. "I think it was a strange one for a manager tonight," Pearce said.

"I've had to sit through a first-half performance which was awful in all aspects of what we tried to achieve. But we drew a line under that at half-time and obviously, the second half was much, much better.

"All round we were better as a team, so it was a case of putting the first half to bed, learning from it and moving on."

Pearce had said he would make changes from last Thursday's 6-0 European Championship qualifying win against Azerbaijan and only two players retained their place in the first XI, with one of them, Jack Rodwell, assuming the captain's armband from the departed Jordan Henderson, who had been allowed to return to his club, Liverpool.

Craig Dawson, scorer of two goals against Azerbaijan, was the other to keep his place, while Amos, Andre Wisdom and Ross Barkley were the debutants among those coming into the team. In total seven of the line-up were making their first start for the Under-21s and Pearce's inexperienced side struggled to get going in the early stages.

"I think they just didn't gel at all," said Pearce. "We didn't have enough pace in our side, we couldn't get up with the centre-forward and symptomatically we couldn't play out from the back or start an attack.

"There are some real things to learn there – not just for me and my coaches but for the players individually.

Israel – host nation for the 2013 European Under-21 Championships – looked the more dangerous and Pearce made changes at the interval. Lansbury came on for Rodwell and took the captaincy, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was introduced for Jonjo Shelvey and Adam Smith became the latest debutant by replacing Wisdom.

England looked purposeful as the action resumed and the pressure paid off in the 58th minute. Oxlade-Chamberlain crossed from the right and Waghorn scored his second goal in successive matches. It took only two minutes for England to score again, Sordell putting them ahead in emphatic fashion by turning and lashing a shot into the corner of the net from distance.

England were firmly in control and Delfouneso confidently dispatched the penalty after Oxlade-Chamberlain was brought down in the box. Lansbury then wrapped up the win from a pass by Oxlade-Chamberlain, who was key to England's second-half transformation.

"I thought he [Oxlade-Chamberlain] gave us a real lift when he came on," said Pearce. "His training has looked very, very good when he has been here – we had an 11 v 11 game on the second day when we had got together and after 10 minutes of that I said to Steve [Wigley, Pearce's assistant] 'this kid has got to play'.

"His performance was outstanding just in that 10-minute snapshot. He has got a bright future and he played very well here, although we have to nurture all of them, to make sure they all have a bright future."